


50 Ways to Leave Your Lover

by MiaCooper



Category: Star Trek: Voyager
Genre: F/F, F/M, I take requests, If any of these ficlets need a warning it'll be posted in the notes, Janeway x Anyone who can get her off, Multishipping, Prompt Fic
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-07-17
Updated: 2020-12-22
Packaged: 2021-03-05 06:20:43
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 10
Words: 5,143
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25346104
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MiaCooper/pseuds/MiaCooper
Summary: Kathryn Janeway can’t help breaking hearts, but at least she never does it the same way twice.
Relationships: Kathryn Janeway/anyone who can get her off
Comments: 131
Kudos: 59





	1. Chakotay

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Caladenia](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Caladenia/gifts).



> For @caladeniablue, who reblogged my manip, _A Long Journey_ , on tumblr and asked ‘Fic to go with this?’. It got me thinking.
> 
> The manip in question:

“I’m sorry, Chakotay.”

A quick glance in the mirror confirmed that he was still hunched on the edge of his bed, bare under the rumpled sheet she’d tossed hastily (and strategically) over his thighs.

“Kathryn, we need to talk about this.”

She was almost dressed; years of practice made quick work of Starfleet fasteners, whether they were going on or coming off. She propped a hip against the door jamb as she pulled on her boots. “Not now.” 

Not ever, preferably, though she kept that thought firmly to herself.

He opened his mouth, apparently thought better of it, and scrubbed a hand over his face. His voice was deliberately conciliatory as he asked her, “Dinner tonight, then?”

“I can’t.” She evaded his eyes – his dark, wounded, soul-filled eyes – as she attached the final pip to her collar. “I have an appointment with Tuvok to go over security drill procedures.”

“Shouldn’t that fall under the first officer’s duties?”

From the corner of her eye she saw him stand, saw the sheet fall away from his lap, and forced her gaze away as he walked toward her. His hand cupped her nape, warm and shivery and tempting.

Too tempting. That was how she’d ended up here in the first place.

Kathryn pulled away.

This could only be faced head-on, she realised, and turned to him.

“We can’t do this,” she said firmly. “This can’t happen.”

“So you said.” Chakotay watched her, eyes and voice even. “But it did happen.”

“Once. And it was a mistake.”

“Twice,” he corrected, “and sometimes, what seems to be a mistake turns out to be a beautiful opportunity.”

“How mystical of you,” she couldn’t help snapping, then closed her eyes in frustration. “I’m sorry.”

She opened her eyes just in time to see him quickly school the vestiges of amusement from his expression.

“This isn’t _funny_.”

She pushed past him, but he was too fast: he caught her arm and said her name in that soft voice.

“I can’t.” She couldn’t look at him, couldn’t let him hold her or wear down her defences. “We gave into … this … for one night, but it’s over, Chakotay. It can’t happen again. It _won’t_.”

She pulled her arm from his grip, and he let her go, and in three strides she was out in the corridor, gulping in what felt like fresh air but was just the heady rush of freedom.


	2. Jaffen

“I won’t need souvenirs to remember you.”

Her arms go around his neck, tears prickle in her eyes, and her throat catches on a sob. If there’d been music playing in her ready room it would have swelled in orchestral melancholy. Had this been theatre, she’d expect a standing ovation.

As it is, her audience consists of just one man, but she’s determined to convince herself that size doesn’t matter.

The irony is, of course, that size matters a great deal. She might even consider it the most important factor in her eagerness to launch _Voyager_ on her way.

It isn’t enough that they’ve lost weeks of travel time, or that Naomi Wildman isn’t the only crew member suffering debilitating nightmares, or that thanks to the air quality on the planet, half her crew are still afflicted with a lingering cough several days after their rescue.

No, on top of all _that_ , the return of her memory means that she now has full understanding of just how fucking abysmal Jaffen had been at, well, fucking.

No wonder Quarra has to brainwash their workers. Who in their right mind would stay there voluntarily?

“I’ll miss you,” her erstwhile lover is murmuring against her hair.

He really is a nice guy, she thinks guiltily, squeezing him tightly. She’ll miss the company, even if she can do without the bad sex.

Jaffen pulls back to give her a slight smile. “Where am I going to find another woman who talks to her console like you do?”

“Well, if you’re the new shift supervisor you won’t be allowed to fraternise with the workers anyway,” she jokes, then instantly regrets it as his face falls.

She sees Jaffen to the transporter room and returns briskly to the bridge, where she settles into the curve of the chair that moulds exactly to the shape of her behind.

“Are you sorry I showed up?” Chakotay asks.

“Not for a second,” she says fervently. “Resume course, Mr Paris.”


	3. B'Elanna Torres

“It’s because I’m too much for you, isn’t it? Physically, I mean. Because I hurt you.”

B’Elanna hunches on the vast white bed, sheet clutched to her chest, her assertion at odds with how fragile she looks.

Kathryn pauses in the act of fastening one of the many buttons on her ridiculous bodice. The mistake she has always made with B’Elanna, she realises, is forgetting just how much vulnerability that Klingon toughness shields. 

She, of all people, should know how deceptive such appearances can be.

“No, B’Elanna,” she says gently, moving to the bed, cupping B’Elanna’s cheek in her hand. “This isn’t about you.”

“That’s not how it feels.” Her voice breaks on the last word. “Captain, I just –”

And there it is. Kathryn drops her hand as though it’s burnt, and B’Elanna’s words stumble to a stop.

“Is that why?” White teeth dig into the full lower lip and Kathryn can’t help gazing at the soft indent, recalling the way it feels to bite into all that lushness. “Because I can’t –”

“Say my name?” Kathryn finishes for her.

“Yeah.”

It’s far more complicated than that, of course, but Kathryn’s priority here is a clean, quick exit.

“I should never have started this,” she explains. “I can’t be involved with a member of my crew. I’m sorry, B’Elanna.”

She lets her gaze linger on her former lover’s smooth bare shoulders one last time, and then she turns away.

“Computer, end program,” B’Elanna says from behind her, and Fair Haven shimmers into nothingness around them.

If she looks back, all she’ll see is one more lover she’s left with nothing, so Kathryn keeps walking. 

B’Elanna’s voice stops her at the holodeck doors.

“That’s not it at all, is it?”

“What do you mean?” Kathryn asks without turning.

“You’re not leaving me because I’m too rough with you. You’re leaving because I’m not forceful enough.”

Kathryn escapes before B’Elanna can strip her any more naked than she already feels.


	4. Kathryn Janeway

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Requested by @curator-on-ao3. There were several ways I could have gone with this request, but this one felt the most likely.

* * *

She never could handle her gin, and age, it seems, hasn’t improved her tolerance for it. The admiral’s cheeks are flushed and she has long since loosened her collar. But then, Kathryn shed her own jacket and boots hours ago, and her head feels light and echoey.

The room tilts when she closes her eyes. When she opens them, the admiral is watching her.

“What?”

The admiral shakes her head once. “It’s nothing.”

“Don’t do that.”

“All right,” drawls the admiral. “I was thinking about the last person you fucked.”

Kathryn chokes on a sip of gin. “I beg your pardon?”

“You can’t possibly have forgotten,” the admiral smirks. “From your perspective it happened quite recently.”

“I don’t want to talk about it.”

“Oh, come on. Indulge an old woman.”

“Seems to me you’re indulged quite a bit.”

The admiral laughs.

“Besides, this is hardly fair – you know too much about me.” Kathryn leans in to refill both glasses with a less-than-steady hand. “Tell me about the last person _you_ fucked.”

The admiral’s smirk disappears.

“Cat got your tongue?” Kathryn mocks.

Her older self crosses one still-lean thigh over the other and lasers those penetrating grey eyes into hers. Kathryn feels heat rising from her collar. She’s sorely tempted to look away, but if anyone is going to get the better of her in a game of emotional chicken it won’t be her own damn self.

Still, she finds herself shifting in her seat.

“That’s not outside the realm of possibility, you know,” the admiral says, her voice unexpectedly creamy.

“What?” Kathryn frowns.

The admiral leans in to place her glass on the coffee table with a soft click. When she straightens up, she’s much closer than she was before. Or maybe it’s just Kathryn’s tipsy imagination that conjures up the scent of her, the feel of warm breath against her cheek.

“You,” the admiral says deliberately, holding her gaze, “could be the last person I fuck.”

Kathryn is quite literally speechless.

“Don’t tell me you haven’t thought about it. You’ve been thinking about it since you saw the way he looked at me. At us. Whether you admit it to yourself or not.”

The admiral is back in control, and Kathryn cannot understand how she did this. How she’s doing this.

Long fingers – slender, familiar, more gnarled than she’s used to – stroke her jaw, feather under her hair. Sweet-sour breath puffs against her lips. The hum in her ears expands, tingling in her fingertips, hardening her nipples into points. The admiral’s tongue slides over hers. This is exactly how she likes to be kissed. How she likes to be touched.

And if this is the only time, the last time, then she’ll be damned if she leaves now.

Hours later, though still hours before their final mission in the Delta quadrant, Kathryn Janeway fastens her uniform and tiptoes through darkened quarters, leaving her other self to the sleep of the damned. 


	5. Seven of Nine

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Requested by @caladeniablue.

* * *

The sun was barely breaking over the rugged desert horizon as Kathryn crept into the ensuite bathroom.

“Lights,” she murmured when the door was sealed behind her. Silence swelled in the clinical white room, louder than the morning-after headache pounding in her ears.

God, what had she done?

She grasped the edge of the sink and bowed her head, steeling herself to meet her eyes in the mirror.

Her reflection was pale, wavering, insubstantial. It matched the way she’d felt since _Voyager_ returned to Earth; since everything she’d spent seven years hoping for had turned out to be nothing she wanted.

She scooped icy water in her hands and bent to splash her face. Maybe she could wash away the memories with it, she thought, and her regrets.

But wasn’t that what she’d been trying to do last night? Cleansing herself of sorrows, or drowning them; did it really matter?

Did anything matter, when she went about her days in a fog, with all that surrounded her dull and faded? Too tired, too listless even to wish for something brighter, something more, except for a few desperate moments. Moments in which she invariably made bad, hurtful decisions. Moments that only led to more regret.

“Stop it,” Kathryn said aloud to the woman in the mirror.

She had to get out of here. Chakotay would be home soon, and Kathryn still felt enough like herself to know she didn’t want to hurt him. 

It would be easier, too, if she left before Seven was awake.

She dried her face on a towel and ran her fingers through her hair to comb out the worst tangles. There wasn’t much she could do about the missing button on her blouse or the wrinkles in her skirt, but it couldn’t be helped, and it was early enough that nobody was likely to see her on her walk of shame.

“Lights off.”

Careful, she snicked the door open, feeling the bedroom air for any ripple, any sound. Nothing. She eased through the gap.

Seven hadn’t moved. Pink fingers of sunlight patterned the pale length of her back, glinting on golden hair, on the silver starburst that decorated her cheek. A memory bubbled to the surface: Seven smiling, recounting a dream, telling Kathryn that sleep made her feel human, that she cherished it.

That had been right before Kathryn kissed her.

There had been nothing drab or faded about the kiss. And she had chased that feeling, wanting more, wanting to feel alive.

Kathryn watched the gentle swell and fall of Seven’s breathing and remembered how soft her skin had felt, how warm beneath her hands. How her hair fell silkily between Kathryn’s fingers. How she’d tasted.

She wanted to feel that way again – alive, full of colour, breathless – but there was no time. Chakotay would be home soon. Seven would wake up. Everything would end, and that was worse than just fading away.

And still it took all of her will to turn away from the bed, to tiptoe across to the door, to let herself outside and sink her bare toes into the dry, crumbling dirt.

She wondered when she would next feel an arid breeze curling over her ankles, or watch a lover as she slept, or spill silky-soft hair between her fingers.

The sun was almost over the horizon now. Kathryn turned her face toward it, adjusted her satchel on her shoulder, and began the trek across the open, scrubby plain toward the public transporter station.


	6. Mark Johnson

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Requested by @purpledog47.

* * *

She caught sight of him moving through the bedroom behind her and turned from the mirror. “Did you find it?”

Mark held up a handful of pink satin. “This one, right?”

“Thanks, honey,” she mumbled through a mouthful of hairpins. “Could you put it in my bag?”

He tossed the nightgown into her duffel as she faced back to the mirror, winding the last long coil of hair into her bun and pinning it securely. _Pyjamas_ , she mentally ticked off her list, _toothbrush, lip balm, shampoo_ …

Warm arms circled her waist from behind and she felt him kiss his way upward along the slender stretch of spine exposed by the unfastened back of her turtleneck. His lips found that spot that made her close her eyes just as his hands cupped her breasts.

“Mark,” she sighed, “I wish we had time.”

“You’re the captain,” he murmured, kissing her neck. “You can make the time.”

She tried to stifle a moan as he untucked her shirt and slid his hands under it, his thumbs teasing her nipples into points beneath her satin bra.

“Come on, Kath,” he nipped her earlobe, “it’ll be weeks before I see you again.”

Sighing, she leaned into him and let her head fall back onto his shoulder, let him slide his right hand down to unzip her pants while his left pinched gently at her nipples. “You’ll mess up my hair,” she pretended to pout.

“Cut it short. No mess, no fuss.”

She smiled. “You’d hate it. You only love me for my long hair.”

“Not true,” he nipped at her jaw, “I just have a thing for women in uniform.”

She laughed.

“Open your legs for me, Kath,” Mark coaxed. “Let me make you come.”

She spread her legs, and only moments later dissolved into a flurry of shudders and staccato sighs under his practiced, talented hands.

Ten minutes later, hair smooth and uniform crisp, she slung her carrybag over her shoulder and rested a hand on his chest.

“Thanks,” she said.

“For what?”

“For the trouble I’m going to have keeping my mind off you while we’re apart,” she grinned crookedly at him, turning to leave.

He caught her hand and reeled her back in, and Kathryn let her duffel fall to the floor and wrapped her arms around his neck. His lips on hers were warm, assured, familiar.

She was smiling as they parted. She rested her hand against his cheek.

“See you in a few weeks,” she said softly. “Don’t miss me too much.”

Then she picked up her bag and strode through the door, her mind already on _Voyager_ ’s mission to the Badlands.


	7. Amelia Earhart

For a woman who’s been abducted by aliens and woken from a four hundred year slumber only to find herself on the other side of the galaxy, Earhart’s resilience is remarkable. 

She hangs over Tom Paris’ shoulder at the helm, peppering him with increasingly insightful questions. She asks about the nacelles and the astrogator and the warp core. She inspects the stellar cartography stations and pores over the navigational readouts, and when Paris mentions there’s an entire navigational array on deck twelve, her eyes widen.

Before her helmsman can suggest a visit, Kathryn jumps in.

“Perhaps you’d like a tour, Miss Earhart?”

Miss Earhart indicates that she would like that very much.

They’ve inspected the nav array and main engineering and are on their way to deflector control when Earhart’s knees buckle and she stumbles, pressing a hand to _Voyager_ ’s smooth bulkhead for support. Kathryn is there, one hand under the other woman’s elbow, the other lifting her chin.

“Are you all right, Miss Earhart? Maybe you should rest –”

“Absolutely not,” Earhart interrupts hastily. “I’ve been asleep for four centuries, and I have too much to catch up on.”

“All right,” Kathryn concedes, “but I could use some coffee before we continue.”

* * *

They drink coffee and eat tiny round cakes, brought to their table by Neelix, and Kathryn once again finds herself admiring Earhart’s aplomb as the woman barely even gapes at the Talaxian before collecting herself. Afterwards, Kathryn is uncharacteristically reluctant to return to duty. She steers the aviator into the turbolift and starts to order it to the bridge, then stops.

“Earlier, you asked my helmsman some very impressive questions about _Voyager_ ’s flight operations,” she says. “How would you like to fly her yourself?”

Earhart’s eyes spark. “Is that even possible?”

“In a manner of speaking, anything is possible.” Kathryn smiles at her. “Computer, holodeck two.”

It doesn’t surprise her that Earhart takes holography in her stride, nor that she’s quick to grasp the basics of thruster control, impulse drive and warp mechanics. Within an hour, the aviator is laughing as she pilots a holographic Starfleet fighter in loops and dives, bringing it to a landing so smooth that even Tom Paris might be impressed.

Then Kathryn calls for a simulation of _Voyager_ ’s bridge, and Earhart sits behind the conn, touching the flight panel with reverent fingertips.

“May I?” she asks, and at Kathryn’s nod, Earhart lays in a course for –

“Earth,” Kathryn says, eyes fixed on the viewscreen.

“You know,” Earhart says softly after a long stretch of silence, “this planet could be home to you, too.”

Kathryn breaks her gaze, looks down at the woman in the pilot’s seat. “You were my childhood hero,” she blurts. “I wanted to be like you. A pioneer.”

Earhart’s dark eyes are warm. “And now you are.” She stands, takes Kathryn’s hand. “If I inspired you, if I’m partly the reason you became who you are, then I’m proud.”

“Miss Earhart –”

“Call me Amelia,” the aviator says, and leans in to kiss her.

* * *

“I meant it, you know,” Amelia says. “You could stay. We could make this a home.”

They’ve wandered away from the rest of the group. In the shadow of _Voyager_ ’s nacelle, Kathryn reaches for Amelia’s hand.

“I can’t stay,” she says, and is surprised to find that she feels every bit of the regret she hears in her own voice. “I made a promise to my crew.”

“I understand.”

“I know you do,” says Kathryn. “I just wish this wasn’t the last time I’ll see you.”

“If there’s one thing I’ve learned, it’s that anything is possible,” Amelia squeezes Kathryn’s hand, “so don’t be so sure about the future.”

She steps closer, and after a quick glance around to be sure they’re still alone and unobserved, Kathryn kisses her. It’s lingering and sweet, a question and an answer.

“Goodbye, Amelia,” Kathryn says.

Amelia smiles. “Until we meet again.”


	8. Tuvok

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Requested by @tri42 and @purpledog47.
> 
> Warning: references to pretty brutal sex, but nothing explicit.

* * *

_Stardate 61625.1 – 16 August, 2384_

Tarkalean flu.

He must really be slipping if that’s the best he can come up with, she thinks, then chastises herself for it.

Cynicism and gallows humour have become second nature. Just a couple more shreds of her that this journey does its best to strip away, but she refuses to stop resisting it.

She rings the chime.

~Commander Tuvok has requested not to be disturbed except in case of emergency,~ the computer informs her.

“I’d say this qualifies. Open the door,” she orders. “Authorisation Janeway lambda one four three red.”

The computer chirps, the doors slide open, and Janeway steps into arid heat and shadows.

“Go away,” howls the hollowed-out wreck that emerges from the gloom. The whites of his eyes reflect the light of stars he hasn’t seen for decades.

It can’t be more than a week or two since she last visited – can it? – but to Janeway he looks wasted, diminished.

There is nothing of serenity or stoicism about him. He is raw fright and crumbling bedrock. He is unrecognisable.

“Tuvok,” she tries to gentle him. “It’s me. Kathryn Janeway. I’ve come to help you.”

“You’re a ghost,” he hurls at her. “Leave me alone. Let me die. I want to die.”

Maybe he really does, she thinks, and wavers. Maybe she should let him. It might be kinder, in the end.

But she’s come this far making choices based on gut and selfishness, and she’s not about to stop now.

“It’s just the _pon farr_ , Tuvok,” she says, enunciating loud and clear. “And I’m here to help –”

If she’s expecting him to put up more of a fight, she’s wrong.

He’s on her before she’s even finished speaking. Fingers clamped tight around her head, stale breath hot on her lips. Eyes she doesn’t recognise. Pain –

Pain that steals not only her breath but her spirit.

It’s worse than Cardassians, worse than the Fen Domar. It scours her out from the insides and pulps her mind, and she can only retreat, disengage, shrink into the tiniest cowering shard of herself. The last remaining shred of Kathryn Janeway.

She doesn’t know how long it takes until he purges the _plak tow_. Hours, days, eternity, it’s all the same from her point of vantage, from this place that isn’t a sanctuary but is the only prison she can bear.

But at some point, she remembers that her prison is the one she’s made for herself, and it’s her duty to bear it whether she thinks she can or not.

She emerges. Forces herself to her feet. Puts on her uniform.

Checks Tuvok’s pulse – steady – and fever – broken – and summons the Doctor.

Shattered in body and soul, she drags herself to her quarters and tries to dredge up the wherewithal to replicate a hypospray and draw herself a bath.

But all she can do is curl up and keen, and hope to God she’s dead, or they all are, before another seven years have passed.


	9. Owen Paris

“I’ve found you a ship.”

Kathryn’s hand stilled on his chest, where she’d been idly tracing her fingers over his heart. “What do you mean?”

“The _Bonestell_ – an _Oberth_ class. It’s what you’ve been wanting, isn’t it? A ship of your own.”

Something in his voice curled into her hindbrain and set all her senses on high alert. She shifted to see him, registering that his gaze dropped to her bare breasts but returned immediately to her face.

His body was slack under her palm – fleshy, gravid with advancing years, a thing she had always claimed she did not mind –, and although his mouth was smiling his eyes were not. If she’d had to put a name to the expression in them she’d have called it disdain.

He was waiting, she could tell, for something. She wasn’t sure what he wanted from her. That was different, and not entirely comfortable.

“It is what I’ve always wanted,” she agreed slowly. “But Owen, I’m twenty-nine. I only made commander a year ago. Even I know I haven’t earned it.”

His smile thinned, and some of that new and disquieting scorn bled into his reply. “You’ve earned it, Katie.”

And there it was: the confirmation she’d been dreading, and wilfully ignoring. And – damn it all – it _hurt_. More than it should.

She didn’t trust herself to speak. She got off the bed, off _him_ , in silence and pulled on the little black dress she’d showed up in. It had felt so naughty at the time, so sexy, turning up at his family home in sky-high heels and a dress Julia could never have pulled off.

She laughed in spite of herself. What had she been thinking? Certainly not that he’d leave his wife for her, no, she had never wanted that, but … had she really thought that she could do this, _this_ , with _him_ , and still see respect when he looked at her?

_Idiot_ , she scolded herself as she buckled her strappy shoes. _Stupid, arrogant, fucking little idiot_.

“Where are you going?”

He had the nerve to sound surprised. She didn’t answer. She straightened up, taking her time to shake out her hair and smooth her dress.

“Come back to bed, Katie.” She heard him patting the empty sheets, still warm, she was sure, from her body. “There’s no need to run away.”

The self-satisfaction in his voice curdled her stomach. _You got what you wanted_ , it said. _Now come and show me you’re grateful for it_.

One hand on the door jamb, she turned and withered him with an over-the-shoulder glare.

“Go fuck yourself, Admiral, because I won’t be doing it anymore.”

The heavy door swung closed behind her and Kathryn’s stilettos carried her along the Berber-carpeted hallway. Her step was light and a smile broke over her face.

Leaving had never felt so liberating.


	10. Harry Kim

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This one was requested by @arcadia75.

There’s an ache in the pit of her stomach, low down between her hip bones. The good kind of ache, but unfamiliar. It’s been so long … she barely remembered what this was like, had had to think, frowning through the hangover haze, trying to recall if she’d suffered some kind of injury, or an alien sickness.

How sad, how pathetic, that it’s been so long since somebody had cared enough, had taken the time, to show her how it could be. Since the last time she’d groaned at the pleasure-pain of pulled inner thighs, abraded skin, roughened lips. Too long, damn it, since she last felt so fucking _good_.

She is so absorbed in the delicious languor of lightly strained muscles that the shift of the warm body beside her comes as a shock.

Of course. He’s still here. Whoever he is.

Does she care? Not really, she reflects, eyes still closed, smiling. There’s a red-wine drumbeat in the base of her skull and her mouth is cotton-dry, but her body thrums so lavishly that she can almost believe the hands stroking her are real. She exhales so softly it can’t quite be called a sigh.

Red wine. Light presses its fingers through the cracks in her memory and she sees

_a damp palm leaving marks on her white dress uniform, the weight of new bars on her collar, her polite smile slipping, the relief as a familiar voice smoothly guides her away from Admiral Sweaty Hands, the way she’d leaned into his shoulder in gratitude –_

Velvet dims the flash of memory, but she runs the tips of her fingers along her breastbone as she reminds herself that he gave her more than simple diplomatic rescue.

The sound of his breathing changes beside her. She suspects he’s waking up. What will it be like, this first morning, waking to a stranger’s sleep-creased skin and sour morning breath? Will he be handsome, and if not, will he fuck her well enough to make up for it?

Will he want to fuck her again?

Because she really, really wants him to fuck her.

_Fuck me, she gasps, oh god pleasedon’tstop. They are crammed against a wall somewhere, upright, her pants half off one ankle and her other leg wrapped around his driving hips. His perspiring forehead is pressed to her neck, his fingers digging into her ass, steel and grinding bones and friction so good it feels like dying, is she dying? God, he’s killing her, she’s going to burst open, she’s going to come so hard –_

Beside her, she realises, the stranger is holding his breath. She thinks she might have moaned. Has she woken him, moaning like a wanton old lush? Heat stains her cheeks.

There’s nothing for it but to turn and face him, to make a self-deprecating quip and hope like hell that he lives up to her memory, such as it is.

If only she could be sure her voice wouldn’t grate or crack or creak, or her bones, or her heart.

Kathryn gathers her courage and begins, “Well, this isn’t the way I’d planned to start the m–”

The words die on her lips as she turns to him, registers the complex mix of emotions in his eyes, and recognises his face. His very familiar, dear, well-learned face.

“Fuck,” she says flatly.

She’s known him for seven years now, long enough to recognise each expressive nuance in his reaction. Recognises, too, when he lets the mischief shine through.

“I was hoping you’d say that,” says the newly promoted Lieutenant Harry Kim.

 _He gets that smartass streak from Tom Paris_ , she thinks inconsequentially, then corrects herself. Harry Kim has more than enough perverse spirit all on his own terms, as he proved last night.

Repeatedly. Prodigiously. With talent and aplomb.

Who would have thought?

She winces.

“Don’t do that,” Harry says immediately.

She can’t find her balance, not with this new assertive Harry Kim (is it really new, though? Or has she just not been paying attention?), who can apparently read her as easily as she can him. Better, perhaps, because he’s not the one in a tailspin right now. She’s at a distinct disadvantage here.

Kathryn pulls the sheet loose and wraps it around her body as she slips from the bed, keeping her movements smooth, not too quick. Her uniform is folded neatly on a chair (did Harry do that? Because she sure as hell wasn’t capable of that last night) thank the heavens. She keeps her back to him as she lets the sheet slip and yanks on her clothes. “Last night was –”

“Sure was.”

She glares at him, relieved to have a reason to do so. “Last night was … enjoyable… but never to be repeated.”

“Just like that?”

Kathryn fastens her jacket and ignores the underlying drawl in his tone. Not quite meeting his eyes, she turns in his direction. “I appreciate you … looking after me, Ens- Lieut-,” she closes her eyes momentarily, “ _Harry_.”

“It was my pleasure.”

She glares again. “Yes. Well. Excuse me,” and she strides for the door, trying not to look as though she’s bolting.

“Admiral.”

Kathryn stops in her tracks. She’d been so close – almost out the door, almost gone – but it’s too late.

“Next time you need someone to look after you, you know where to find me.”

“I’ll keep that in mind,” she forces out.

The door closes behind her, quieter than her relieved exhale. She hurries along the grey, carpeted corridor.

Long before she reaches the exit, Kathryn notices that there’s a bounce in her step and a smile on her lips.

**Author's Note:**

> Want KJ to leave someone? Leave me a comment here, or dm me on [tumblr](https://mia-cooper.tumblr.com/ask).


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